Stepmom Brain

For as long as I can remember, I've prided myself on the fact that I'm pretty organized with my schedule.  It's a rare occurrence that I miss an appointment, double book myself or completely FORGET what I have going on without a calendar in front of me.  Maybe I should rephrase that to say, "it was a rare occurrence ...".  You see, once I got married and began managing not just my own calendar, but the calendars of six people, that's when I realized what the phrase "Stepmom Brain" means!

It just so happens that this topic was on my mind recently, which worked out wonderfully since JuiceBoxJungle is teaming up with Verizon to sponsor this blog post!  They asked me to talk about how I do or do not use my smartphone.  Truth be told, I never felt the need for a smartphone - they just looked so cool that I totally wanted one.  Good thing my hubby has the connections with the right people, because shortly before our engagement, he was able to hook me up with a Blackberry of my own.  What can I say besides I was completely ecstatic!  Here I had this awesome phone where I could surf the internet, find great ringtones and play "Brick Breaker".  Life was good!


Then one day Monte asked me how I like the calendar on my phone.  I politely smiled and told him that I really don't use it!  I didn't have enough going on in my life beyond work, going out to his house to spend time with him and the kids, and visiting with friends.  That wasn't something that required me to have a calendar, at least in my opinion!


Fast forward to post-wedding.  At this point, I've quit my job to be a stay-at-home stepmom.  The one thing I realized more than anything else is the necessity for a calendar!  We have our calendar book sitting on the kitchen counter.  We all write in it (well, with the exception of Colin!), as we all have so many events going on that our calendar is in hyper overload!  I love my calendar.  You know, the one sitting on my kitchen counter.  I never thought I would need to use the calendar in my Blackberry.  Until today.

You see, I was out running errands and received a return phone call from my doctor's office.  As I was talking to them trying to schedule an appointment, I realized that I had no clue what next week's schedule looked like.  So, being the fact that the appointment is extremely important, I decided to shoot for whatever was the first availability they had.  I made the appointment, and after we hung up I put it into the calendar on my Blackberry (while stopped at a red light, mind you!).  It wasn't until after I arrived at home and looked at the calendar on the counter that I realized I had once again double booked myself.  Now I'm going to be missing out on half of my MOPs group next week because of this appointment.  Granted, the way the doctor's schedule is, it's likely that I would've made this decision in the end anyway, but it was still disheartening to realize that I was scheduling myself on what I assumed was an open morning.

UGH.

So today I made a command decision.  I'm a busy woman.  I'm a stepmom who frequently has moments where my 'Stepmom Brain' overrides everything else, which means double (and sometimes triple) scheduling myself!  Today, I opened my Outlook calendar and quickly (and very easily) added all of the events on the paper calendar, as well as the evens on my Pampered Chef calendar (yes, another paper calendar that I carry!).  Once that was done, I placed a quick phone call to the hubby and he talked me through the insanely easy process of synchronizing my Outlook calendar with my Blackberry calendar.

If only I had known sooner that it could be this easy!